1. 1. Informix on IBM PowerLinux Comparing Power7 and Power8 Eric Vercelletto eric.vercelletto@begooden-it.com 1CELEBRATING 20 YEARS
2. 2. Just in case: who am I? I dedicated the major part of my life to Informix I run Begooden IT Consulting , IBM ISV, exclusively focused on Informix technology services. I am a member of the IIUG Board of Directors, and president of the French LUG (GUIDE Share France groupe Informix) check my blogs http://www.vercelletto.com http://levillageinformix.blogspot.com (in french) 2
3. 3. Agenda 3
4. 4. Big concentration on hardware platforms since the 90s In general, all those brands had a distinct home-made architecture, some exceptions based on Intel. Many of those makers have disappeared or been acquired by existing or emerging makers. The Intel architecture has gained a strong momentum (Compaq, Dell, Gateway, etc) Some home made architecture appeared on the playfield: IBM PowerPC, Oracle/Sun Sparc Others have simply disappeared (HP-PA, MIPS, Alpha, Motorola) 4
5. 5. 80-90s: many actors on the servers market 5
6. 6. 80-90s: existing CPU technologies
7. 7. The CPU marketplace today
8. 8. Who is on the market today
9. 9. The market recent evolution
10. 10. IBM Power Architecture is a major player The Power PC RISC chip has been released by 1992 Since then it has constantly been improved. Starting with Power3 models, we are now at Power 8. IBM Power architecture has more cache, more threads and more bandwidth than any existing Intel architecture, this makes the difference Performance, reliability, scalability are key advantages that have made the success of Power in business critical implementations 10 2004 2007 2010 2014 POWER7/7+ 45/32 nm POWER8 22 nm POWER6/6+ 65/65 nmPOWER5/5+ 130/90 nm
11. 11. Power Architecture is Purpose Built 11
12. 12. IBM POWER8 : Design Objectives 12 12 - More Core / More Threads - Stronger Perf. / thread - Higher Data Bandwidth - Higher IO Bandwith - Open HW Accelerator Design for : Cloud Open Innovation to put data to work Analytics InnovationTraditional-IT +
13. 13. Few Interesting Facts About Linux 13 Linux is the worlds fastest growing Operating System Over 90% of worlds fastest supercomputers, run on Linux 8 of the worlds top 10 websites run on Linux (Google, YouTube, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter) 80% of All Stock Exchanges in the world rely on Linux 95% of the servers used by Hollywood animation films run on Linux US Department of Defense is the "single biggest install base for Red Hat Linux" in the world Enterprise Linux is growing with new types of workloads Big Data, Analytics and Cognitive Computing IBM is focused on providing a NEW winning solution: Linux on Power Systems
14. 14. The LINUX History a Mature Operating System
15. 15. Linux is constantly gaining respect in many companies Linux is always a very good alternative to Windows servers, for reliability, availability and budget reasons Linux is frequently used in horizontal scalable architectures like Hadoop, MongoDB etc Linux SAdmin are easy to find: Linux is part of all the universities curriculum 15 But Linux on x86 is not globally recognized as the most trusted combination for critical implementations, because of x86 platform.
16. 16. IBM Power Systems delivers: Dynamic efficiency, with intelligent, workload-based resource allocation Business analyticsoptimized for big data and compute-intensive applications Enhanced reliability and availability Linux delivers: Rich opportunities for innovation and enablement of new workloads Significant cost savings Industry-leading flexibility and performance Linux on Power Systems integrates these two powerful technologies to deliver the highest levels of: Efficiency Availability Security Reliability Scalability Cost savings Linux on Power Systems combines the unparalleled performance of Power with the open innovation and cost effectiveness of Linux.
17. 17. and Linux distributions support Distro officially supported by IBM (with software maintenance) Distro supported by community helped by IBM (fully functional) Distro with ppc64 version but limited support* (may work on Power servers) * Kernel not optimized for IBM Power Server, No PowerLinux Tools available Enterprise Dev. / Solution Experiment
18. 18. IBM PowerLinux + Informix: best match for business critical implementations IBM Power has a strong reputation for reliability and performance IBM Informix has a strong reputation for reliability and performance Many business critical applications run very successfully on this combination Biggest retailer in the world (USA) Chinese government Biggest entertainment parks in the world(USA,France,Asia) Biggest online games company (UK, Ireland) Many Bank Assurance companies Healthcare And many more ( check in the conference rooms ) IBM PowerLinux is just as robust and fast as IBM Power AIX AND: Servers pricing are aggressive against x86 Servers and IBM Power/AIX Informix pricing is more aggressive against x86 of same range Linux is cheaper in terms of staffing 18
19. 19. Now, wake up for some 19
20. 20. Define the benchmark 20 Objective: compare performance and system behavior of IBM Informix 12.10 FC2 between a Power 7/PowerLinux Server and a Power8/PowerLinux Server Both servers alternatively connected to same storage rack Same OS version (RedHat Power 6.4) Same binaries Same Informix (12.10FC2) Same data Power7 has 16 cores Power8 has 15 cores (this was a pre-release server) Methodology: use homebrewed TPC-C benchmark running on the server, and compare results between Power7 setting and Power8 Compare data load times Compare tpm/C evolution as the number of users grows Determine efficiency of hyperthreading Specific conditions: the application binaries and the Informix Server run on the same machine.
21. 21. The IBM Architecture (Power750 & S824) Kindly provided by IBM Montpellier Client Center
22. 22. Comparing tpc-c data load time 22 Load 300 TPC Warehouses, that is data for 3000 users One process, running in express mode, i.e. using raw tables and prepared inserts Same code, same IFMX configuration file, same storage 03:25 01:56:29 00:00 00:28 00:57 01:26 01:55 02:24 02:52 03:21 03:50 1 Data load time 300 Warehouses POWER7 POWER8
23. 23. Comparing tpc-c one user 23 Run TPC-C, 1 warehouse, 1 user. All parameters similar, same storage 4 597 7 293 11 032 9302 13394 15727 0 2 000 4 000 6 000 8 000 10 000 12 000 14 000 16 000 18 000 min avg max tpcc 1 user results in tpmC Power7 Power8
24. 24. Comparing tpc-c 500 users Run tpc-c for 50 warehouses 10 users, same config 24 76 153 83 782 96 503 126860 145453 152485 0 20 000 40 000 60 000 80 000 100 000 120 000 140 000 160 000 180 000 min avg max tpc-c 500 users results in tpmC Power7 Power8
25. 25. Comparing tpc-c 800 users Run tpc-c for 80 warehouses 10 users, same config 25 66 933 77 487 90 770 113396 118243 123753 0 20 000 40 000 60 000 80 000 100 000 120 000 140 000 min avg max tpc-c 800 users results in tpmC Power7 Power8
26. 26. Comparing best tpc-c obtained before system optimization This graph displays the best tpmC obtained respectively on Power7 and Power8 with the same configuration Best results for P7 is obtained with 500 users Best results for P8 is obtained with 600 users 26 96 503 128344 0 20 000 40 000 60 000 80 000 100 000 120 000 140 000 Power7 Power8 Best tpmC with identical configuration tpmC
27. 27. Going for maximum performance with further IFMX optimization 27 Tpcc-c runs on only 9 tables, which results in a strong contention on memory and disk IO, generating buffer waits in IFMX To eliminate this performance issue, we will fragment the tables and indexes so that IO and buffer access do not generate a bottleneck From now on, we will no more compare results with P7 but show how far we can go
28. 28. Fragmenting the tables and indexes a significant performance gain 28 126 860 128 344 123 753 152 485 162 370 158 125 0 20 000 40 000 60 000 80 000 100 000 120 000 140 000 160 000 180 000 500 users 600 users 700 uers Gain with tables and index fragmentation NoFragment Fragment
29. 29. Good resistance to users number increase 29 1400 2000 3000 178 664 171 169 157 644 1 10 100 1000 10000 100000 1000000 1 2 3 Resistance to users increase Users tpmC
30. 30. Setting SMT on Power7 We did some tests on Power7 with SMT, namedly SMT=4, but could not conclude in a real enhancement and did not proceed further Best performance has been achieved with SMT = 2 ( i.e. 2 threads per core ) After discussion, IBM Engineering states that P8 handles threads multiplication per core much more efficiently than P7 30
31. 31. POWER8 Multi-threading Options 31 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 P7 SMT1 P8 SMT1 P8 SMT2 P8 SMT4 P8 SMT8 SMT1: Largest unit of execution work SMT2: Smaller unit of work, but provides greater amount of execution work per cycle SMT4: Smaller unit of work, but provides greater amount of execution work per cycle SMT8: Smallest unit of work, but provides the maximum amount of execution work per cycle Can dynamical shift between modes as required: SMT1 / SMT2 / SMT4 / SMT8 Mixed SMT modes supported within same LPAR Requires use of Resource Groups
32. 32. Setting SMT on Power8 Increasing SMT on P8, correlated with increasing CPU vp #, is a game changer and provides important gains in performance 32 49 542 85 391 104 687 164 230 179 838 107 605 149 580 155 023 179 569 204 947 0 50 000 100 000 150 000 200 000 250 000 400 600 800 1200 1600 Impact of SMT setting SMT2 SMT4
33. 33. Best Performance overall The best tpmC obtained in that benchmark is 264.162 tpmC With 500 users On IBM Power S824 Smt=4 32 cpu VPs 33
34. 34. Conclusions PowerLinux is technically a great platform for business critical applications Robust: IBM Power designed for mission-critical Fast: IBM Power designed for performance Scalalable: PowerVM offers great flexibility Easy to administrate: today everyone knows linux Power8 offers higher level of performance for the cost of an Intel Server For a TCO that is really a challenge for same range Intel platforms PVU price is cheaper on PowerLinux than on Intel Informix runs great on PowerLinux More to come later. 34
35. 35. Thank you IBM Montpellier Client Center Team: Fabrice Moyen, Sbastien Chabrolles, Marie-Line Reygnier, Christophe Cavelier, Laurent Revel IBM Lenexa: Vladimir Kholobrodov Gonalo Ruivo (the surfer on the front picture) 35
36. 36. Informix on IBM PowerLinux Comparing Power7 and Power8 Questions? Eric Vercelletto eric.vercelletto@begooden-it.com 36